300 LECTURE VII. 



some additional investigations of the same 

 subject. 



' These were the inquiries by which he 

 was chiefly convinced that life was a great 

 architect. Pie believed that vital actions 

 begin simultaneously in various parts of 

 the semi-opake and whitish areola which is 

 called the cicatricula. He says that there 

 is a zone of bloody points at a distance from 

 the part where the rudiments of the chick 

 begin to form. He suspects that blood is 

 first formed, and vessels afterwards. He 

 is certain that vessels forming in different 

 parts of the areola, afterwards coalesce, and 

 that the foetus is not developed, but built 

 up.* I kept some pullets last winter se- 

 cluded from the male bird, and Mr. Clift 

 examined the cicatricula of the eggs which 

 they laid in the spring by the microscope, 

 without being able to observe any difFer- 



* I have already mentioned that he believed; that the 

 vital px'ocesses were tarried on in the same manner in 

 the uniting medium of parts that have been divided or 

 removed. ~ 



